‘Auditor’s report and deficit budget show our financial mess’
By Harakah Daily
Several PAS members of parliament have warned that the country’s financial mismanagement had reached a peak following spiralling national debt as well as continued mismanagement as revealed by the Auditor General’s latest report.
Despite an increase in cash pile of RM6.32 billion in 2009 from RM1.541 billion in 2008, Tumpat member of parliament Kamaruddin Jaffar said the country’s economic woes were far from over.
Kamaruddin said the bigger cash balance should not be viewed as a success as the government had made a cash loan amounting to RM107.171 billion last year, up from RM75.156 billion in 2008.
“It is thus meaningless that the government managed to save RM6.32 billion when the government loan increased by RM35 billion,” he said in response to the Auditor-General’s Report released yesterday.
Speaking at a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) meeting yesterday, Kamaruddin however praised Ambrin Buang, the Auditor General, and his team, for their professionalism in exposing the weaknesses in the country’s financial management.
The annual report documents wastages and mismanagement by government departments. Among others, it said luxury items were purchased by the military using the economic stimulus fund, mismanagement of the higher education loan PTPTN and poor quality of food distributed under the government’s Additional Food Programme for school students.
14th deficit budget
Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad said the 2011 budget was the country’s deficit budget for the 14th consecutive year, adding that the UMNO-led government had run out of ideas on how to formulate a budget that could solve the economic woes.
“Although the government says that the deficit is only an additional 5%, the fact is the percentage is not based on the total amount of the budget but based on the country’s national gross domestic product (GDP).
“5.2 percent or 2 or 3 or 4 from GDP is a huge number,” he said.
Khalid pointed out that based on the budget, the government’s debt stood at a whopping RM46 billion.
“If we study the Budget speech, we will see a page with pie charts showing the total loan and the usage of government apparels – 22 percent is allocated to loan.
“The total loan is at RM46 billion. This is a huge amount, and at the same time we are servicing our national debt of RM18 billion. It means that we are borrowing to pay our national debts. This is a dire situation because without the RM46 billion loan and seeing the way BN is managing our money, we will not be able to service our loan,” he explained.
